Hi Ron,
On 15 Sep 2011, at 00:17 BST, you wrote:
o The GEDCOM standard specifically lists only a few language
escapes, on
p 45: Gregorian, Julian, Hebrew, French, Roman and Unknown. Make of
that
what you will.
These are not languages, they are fundamentally different calendars:
o the Julian calendar (the well-known plan of the days and months
created by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C., but finally stabilized about 8
A.D.; the numbering of the years, with 1 A.D. being the year of the
birth of Jesus Christ, came about centuries later, when it was agreed
the calendar begins in 4714 B.C.);
o The Gregorian calendar (in use around most of the western and new
world today, this is a modification of the Julian calendar made in
October 1582 to correct for the discovery that the Julian calendar
was out by about 3 days in every 400 years; in some countries it
replaced the Julian calendar much later, eg in England in 1752, and
not until 1923 in Greece);
o the Hebrew calendar (the Jewish year 1 is 3761 B.C. by the Julian
calendar; this calendar has lunar months 29-30 days long, of which
there are 12 most years, but 13 in its leap years);
o the French Revolutionary calendar (in use from October 1793 ( "year
1") but abandoned in January 1806 in Gregorian terms; it has 12
months of 30 days each, plus an extra 5 or 6 days grouped at the end
of the year)
o the Roman calendar (I assume by this the GEDCOM standard means pre-
Christian, and maybe pre-Julian);
o GEDCOM makes provision for dates from an unknown calendar.
The GEDCOM standard does not refer at all to oriental calendars,
about which I know very little.
Of course, the Julian/Gregorian months have different names in many
languages (including French and Hebrew!), but the calendar is always
the same.
HTH
/mike
--
Mike Elston
Email: mike.els...@one-name.org
